Dwalin

Dwalin is the first dwarf to arrive at Bilbo’s home. Tolkien says he has “a blue beard tucked into a golden belt.” As you can see, Peter Jackson’s adaptation has done away with the multi-colored beard scheme, perhaps mindful that Tolkien wrote The Hobbit for children. Instead Dwalin’s most noticeable signifier is his bald, oblong head. Not a prominent figure in Tolkien’s books, Dwalin in the film is your stock-in-trade dwarf warrior, taciturn and Scottish-brogued (the more playful ones in the company conveniently have Irish or Northern Irish accents). In Tolkien’s books, we learn that Dwalin and his brother Balin fought alongside Thorin’s house at Azanulbizar; their father, Fundin, died there. So, yes, he’ll be killing lots of orcs.

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Tolkien (who authored LOTR and The Hobbit) intended the dwarves to represent the Jews of his time. In other words, they were always having their homeland taken from them, they were greedy, had the excessive beards/facial hair, had a similar style of writing, and were always "cut short" when compared with the rest of society.

As such, the dwarves in Tolkien's mythology were meant to be a veiled commentary on the Jews of Tolkien's day.

The writers and editors at Time Magazine need to do a better job at researching their subject matter BEFORE printing their articles, or posting them online.

@mrbomb13 The article is intended to be a quick guide to the 13 dwarves in the movie, not a research paper on Tolkien's writings, beliefs, and intents. If you want to get up on a soapbox and tell everyone what you know, go ahead, but don't claim the article is poorly researched because it doesn't include every little detail, as that would be a small book in itself. The purpose of the article is clear, and it fulfills that purpose. I humbly suggest you get over yourself.

If the article was only meant to be a guide for the movie, than why would the author bother to note the, "grunting monosyllables such as Oin and Gloin, which, some Tolkien scholars suggest, are drawn from Norse mythology. It seems Tolkien was engaging a tradition of northern European legends that conjures up dwarves as impish, troublesome foils to more human protagonists."

That only tells half of Tolkien's philosophy about the Dwarves. The other half of the influence came from a study of the Jews, and that is documented in Tolkien's writings/letters. I suspect the author viewed those writings to be too controversial, and therefore conveniently omitted them from his article.

@Greekgeek@mrbomb13 As a former teacher, I would certainly agree that one should not use Wikipedia as a primary source.

However, as a researcher, one is certainly allowed to connect to the links for each Wikipedia article, and assess the validity of all source material for the given article. If you check the source material in the Wikipedia article, the Jewish influence on the development of Tolkien's Dwarves did indeed exist.

As you said, Tolkien did indeed incorporate Norse (and, more broadly, Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon) mythology into both LOTR and the Hobbit. Many interviews with Tolkien (and his son) are online, and I would highly recommend watching them. There is even one wherein Tolkien himself says that Dwarves were like the Jews of his time, and based off them.

In case Wikipedia was not enough, here is an additional article to substantiate my point:

Actually, if you read Tolkien's letters, he explicitly states how he, "thinks of the 'Dwarves' like Jews: at once native and alien in their habitations, speaking the languages of the country, but with an accent due to their own private tongue..."

If you would like the exact scholarly souce, you may review the following bibliographic citation:

@mrbomb13@Greekgeek I think that as a researcher, you should also be aware that in Tolkien's previous articles and comments on his own works, he clearly states that there is no direct analogy or comparisons that are being made through his work. He aimed to create a mythic background or folktale for England. By implying a direct comparison between the Jews and the Dwarves you are laying your own interpretation upon the piece. Not necessarily Tolkien's. Yes he may have gained inspiration from his current surroundings but he is not making a social commentary upon the situation of the Jewish people. To assume otherwise is to believe that what an author intends to say is irrelevant and what matters is modern interpretation.